The End of Exceptionalism: African Americans Theorizing Race and Imperialism in South Africa and Beyond

FAIN: HB-263332-19

Krista Margaret Johnson
Howard University (Washington, DC 20059-0001)

A book-length study about the South African writings of Ralph Bunche (1904-1971) and Merze Tate (1905-1996), two major figures of African American intellectual life in the 20th century.

This research project will provide a transnational account of South Africa's racialized history, as observed and theorized by two African American scholars, Ralph Bunche and Merze Tate. The aim is to produce a book manuscript that uncovers, historicizes, and contextualizes Bunche and Tate’s theoretical thinking on the international system, and how their South Africa research was both informed by and informed their broader intellectual framework. I will explore the concept of transnational white supremacy, or a ‘global color line’, and theories of race in the international system that reframe South African and International Studies in transnational, not comparative contexts. I also aim to re-introduce the work of Bunche and Tate to the field of South African and African Studies by situating their research among a recent body of literature that argues against the exceptionalism of South Africa’s institutions and politics.

Associated Products

Pioneering the Social Sciences at the Periphery (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Pioneering the Social Sciences at the Periphery
Author: Krista Johnson
Abstract: This paper discusses the contributions of Howard University scholars to debates on the race problem, and their own efforts to address the geopolitics of knowledge during the 1930s-1940s. By the 1930s, Howard had assembled a critical mass of stellar black intellectuals, part of what DuBois termed the Talented Tenth. In the midst of turbulent years in American race relations, Howard scholars not only sought to practice socially relevant social science and advance a public intellectual model by linking their scholarship and teaching with intellectual activism, they aimed to put in place an institutional architecture that embodied the commitment to using interdisciplinary social science, global perspectives, and transcultural forms of knowledge to inform social action. The Howard scholars initiated a series of annual conferences, lectures and forums intended to institutionalize an approach to American race relations that was situated in the politics of global anti-colonialism, and that presented race and class as inextricably intertwined. It was through these institutional spaces that this cohort of radical black scholar-activists engaged the national and global public around the salient issues of the day, and forged meaningful personal and professional networks cemented in a world-spanning, transcultural community.
Date: 08/10/2020
Conference Name: American Sociological Assocation

Ralph Bunche, Binationalism and the Partition of Palestine (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Ralph Bunche, Binationalism and the Partition of Palestine
Author: Sara Swetzoff
Author: Krista Johnson
Abstract: Ralph Bunche’s enduring fame arises from his brilliant diplomatic service in the United Nations and the leadership role he played in brokering the armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States, for which he became the first person of color to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Now memorialized as the negotiator of the United Nations partition of Palestine, it will come as a surprise to most that Bunche initially advanced a binational solution to the Jewish question and the question of Palestine, over that of partition. As Alex Lubin has argued, Bunche’s thinking/position, in the 1930s and early 1940s, aligned with a group of Afro-Arab and Jewish intellectuals and activists who embraced a politics of binationalism (or anti nationalism) that recognized the multinational possibilities of the land of Palestine and pushed back against the rise of new ethnic-nationalisms during the global upheavals of the interwar era. (Lubin, 2014). However, the potent counter-discourse of binationalism was quickly muted by anti colonial nationalisms and a formidable discourse of national sovereignty. Partition, an idea originally conceived after WWI as part of a new type of imperial governance in the guise of internationalism, after 1945, seemed to offer a quick and efficient exit strategy while maintaining the possibility of continued post colonial influence for Britain.
Date: 11/19/2020

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